Winners and Losers

Each week in Face Time, NJBIZ editors approximate Chris Christie's mood and facial expressions based on the news.

FACE TIME: VACATIONINGThe governor may have been off duty, but it didn't stop him from trying to get people to visit the Shore. He spent a Sunday off-day firing off tweets and posting a picture from Island Beach State Park to drum up interest in his #STTS crusade. Maybe he was the right guy for those commercials, after all.

WINNERS

Jeff Gural

Betting at the Meadowlands racetrack increased 24 percent over last year. We'll let that sink in before pointing out the outdated grandstand is on its last legs, there were far fewer race dates this year than last and racing is neck-and-neck with print news in a race to the grave.

Josh Harris, David Blitzer

Who would have thought that a debt-ridden hockey team would reportedly command a higher sale price than the Washington Post? In any case, this would seem to finally shore up an ownership saga that's been an issue for the franchise since it came to Newark in 2007.

Steven Fulop

The man who defeated Jerramiah Healy loves to run a good race. Case in point: On Saturday morning, Fulop won the Belmar Chase 5K race; he then followed that up Monday with a run through Jersey City with Cory Booker, as a reminder to get the vote out in the primary. Unlike Healy, we don't know if he can sing.

LOSERS

Sheila Oliver

The curious case of the Assembly speaker's U.S. Senate run ends in obscurity; she was so far behind the pack that she essentially finished fifth in a four-horse race. To be fair, she's still got plenty of buzz, as political insiders are still shaking their heads and trying to figure out what, exactly, she was trying to accomplish.

Seaside Heights

Tourists have been in pretty short supply this post-Sandy summer, but federal investigators have been spending plenty of time in town, investigating the legitimacy of some of its cleanup claims. Unfortunately for the borough, Homeland Security and FBI agents aren't quite the big spenders that most shoobies are.

Helen Hoens

The latest casualty of the disastrous threesome that is Christie, the Senate and the judiciary. Hoens is off the Supreme Court as Christie and Steve Sweeney play games of one-upmanship over nominees. Christie had the gall to say Hoens 'deserved tenure,' but 'I was not going to let her loose to the animals.'